


joy too fleeting

by twistedsky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, Lexa loves easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	joy too fleeting

Your weakness is etched on your heart with the bones of those who have died because of it.

This, Lexa knows.

This, she swears never to forget.

~~

In the beginning, Lexa loves Costia easily, her heart aching with _hope._

She rationalizes it—love is inspiration, love is power, love is strength—these are the truths she takes to heart, holding them close in weakness, cold, and despair.

Loving Costia doesn’t interfere with her duties, and she never lets it cloud her judgment.

Later, that certainty is exposed as lies she’d told to herself, lies she’d truly _believed_.

But then, it had felt true.

Lexa thinks of those days as being foggy and muddled, lacking the clarity that she finds when she says goodbye to the love of her life.

~~

Lexa’s father is taken by the reapers before she’s even born.

Her mother tells stories of the man she’d loved, and Lexa grows up believing that love is worth it, even if it doesn’t last, for that is what her mother lives and breathes until the day she dies.

(Later, Lexa hates this about herself—thinks of her mother as a fool, and herself as an even bigger one.)

Lexa’s mother is killed when Lexa’s ten years old, and Lexa watches it happen.

Lexa hides under the dead body of someone her mother had once called a friend, and doesn’t move, barely breathes, almost feels _dead_ in the time it takes for the Mountain Men to move on.

She never sees them, but she hears the guns, and she knows the stories.

Later, after the nightmares stop and she stops stabbing at people with her knife when they try to touch her, this moment is a lesson.

This is a lesson about cruelty, about war, about necessity. The deaths of her people at the hands of the Mountain Men seem unnecessary, but the Mountain Men have never been interested in peace.

Even the Ice Nation knows that there’s a time for conversation, for negotiation and compromise.

She’s young, but Lexa can see the difference

Blood for blood, she knows, is justice.

War is cruel, and only sometimes necessary.

To know when to fight, and know when to speak—this is something that fascinates Lexa, and consumes her thoughts for a long time.

~~

She finds solace in her physicality, in learning how to kill to protect herself and her people.

She finds even more in strategy, in learning the art of negotiation and tactics.

She’s fascinated by moving pieces on the war board, determining acceptable losses and learning to protect her people.

Her mentors see this—some call it weakness, but others understand it to be strength, and she’s methodically taught to use her body, mind, and soul as weapons.

~~

Costia is like sunlight, full of joy and happiness, a bright smile always dancing in her dark eyes, and threatening to curve her lips up in a smile almost always.

Lexa finds it easy to lower her barriers with Costia, though she never quite figures out why.

Some would simply call it love.

~~

Lexa’s training is never-ending—this is where power, strength, and skill come from, and those are the things that protect you, and your people.

Your life is always on the line, she knows, and it’s best to make it at hard as humanly possible for someone to kill you.

If you must die, then earn your death. Fight until there is simply no fight left in you, and honor yourself, and your people.

These are the lessons they are all taught, this is how they find _meaning_.

Costia comes to watch Lexa’s fights at first, before they’ve even spoken.

She watches Lexa carefully for days, always hanging back, never challenging her.

One day, she walks up and breaks her silence, challenging Lexa to a fight.

There’s something in Costia’s face that worries Lexa, though she’s not entirely sure what it is—this isn’t a game, she says, and Costia nods, and the mischief in her eyes narrows to complete focus.

Costia’s light on her feet, even more agile than Lexa, but Lexa’s fast too, and she’s more willing to barrel into Costia, and use force when necessary.

She pins Costia to the ground, sword against her neck, and Costia looks up at her and laughs.

“Are you mocking me?” Lexa asks, but Costia shakes her head.

“You’re impressive,” Costia says again, and smiles at her then.

Lexa’s felt rumblings and stirrings before, but there’s something in that smile that makes her feel more intensely than ever before.

This is how it begins for them.

~~

From there, it escalates quickly.

Costia’s adventurous and kind—she’s more healer than warrior, as she has a gentle kindness about her, and is more interested in herbs than she is in weapons.

From their fight, Lexa knows that she’s as well-trained as any other healer, and she’d likely be a fine warrior if she wished.

She tells Costia this once, and Costia laughs, and tells her she has no interest in killing any more than she absolutely must.

Lexa doesn’t agree, but there’s something about Costia’s pure belief that gives Lexa foolish hopes and dreams.

(Later, when these dreams are shattered, Lexa hardens her heart, and channels her white hot rage into a cold, calculated force of will.)

~~

Costia smiles at her like she sees _something_ in her, and it unnerves Lexa sometimes.

Lexa kisses her one day—it’s rough, and messy, and more pure passion than anything else, and she’s surprised by the intensity with which Costia returns her kisses.

Their love is sweet and gentle, but it’s powerful too, more intense than anything she’s ever felt before.

Costia whispers love against Lexa’s skin, and Lexa would have those words scraped into her skin if not for the mockery that would come with it.

Lexa says the words back, and doesn’t dare imagine the consequences of people knowing how much she loves the girl who shares her bed, not even as her position amongst her people rises.

She should know better, and her lapse costs her.

~~

After months together, it becomes clear that Costia is a permanent fixture in her life(or so it seems, and so her heart hopes), and Lexa accepts it easily.

Lexa's never felt such certainty about a person before, and when she looks at Costia, she sees life beyond survival, beyond simply getting by.

Later, she calls herself a fool, but now she sees the future, sees _hope_ and opportunity, and she reaches out and tries to grab it with both hands.

~~

Lexa is a warrior, a leader.

She's in a dangerous position.

Costia likes to tend to her wounds, and she's always more serious then.

She gets quiet, which in Costia's case is very surprising, as she likes to talk, to express herself in ways that make many others call her strange(though never within Lexa's vicinity if they wish to avoid her wrath).

"I worry," Costia says softly, pressing healing herbs into the wound to fight infection.

"Don't," Lexa says, because it makes her worry for Costia if something should happen.

Costia is fierce when she wishes to be, but her heart is too open, too vulnerable.

"I will anyway," Costia says, teasing slightly. "Be careful."

Lexa doesn't need to be told to be careful with herself. She knows what her role is, knows that eventually her time will come, but in the meantime she must fight to survive.

She's thankful that she doesn't need to worry as much about Costia.

~~

Her heart feels as it’s ripped from her chest, and she screams out in pain.

Her love is dead, her love is dead, her love is _dead_.

She feels such intense pain, and then pure numbness, and she can only vaguely feel anything at all.

She focuses on strategy, and logic, on her responsibilities, and does not let herself think of Costia.

It aches inside of her like a bleeding wound she cannot see, but she can feel it sharply.

There’s death, and then temporary truces that will last mere months until the Ice Nation decides they want something else.

~~

Her wounds heal, and her heart scars over, tougher than before.

This will not happen again, she promises herself.


End file.
